World Cup Day 17 and 18: Four for the quarterfinals

The first four teams in the quarterfinals are set, and it's the four that most people expected to get through. The only surprising thing is how the four got there. A few thoughts:

Brazil 1, Chile 1 (Brazil wins on penalties 3-2): This is not the Brazil we thought we would see. We did not expect Brazil to score in the first half, concede a goal a quarter of an hour later, and then doggedly hang on through the remainder of the game and extra time in order to get to penalties. This is supposed to be the World Cup of samba, of verve and attacking and the expression of joy through futbol; it never crossed our minds that Brazil would need to hang on against Chile.

Then again, perhaps we're just expecting too much from Brazil. They are still the tournament favorites, and are still three wins away from a seventh World Cup. Then again, they were the favorites in Germany and South Africa, too - they are perma-favorites - and they lost in the quarterfinals both times.

Colombia 2, Uruguay 0: Every World Cup has a breakout star, a player that maybe you knew about already, but who suddenly is possessed by the spirit of Pele and scores a bunch of goals. This year's edition is Colombian winger James Rodriguez - it's pronounced Hahm-ez - who scored both Colombian goals in the quarterfinals, bringing his tally up to five, the most in the tournament. If you have not yet seen his first goal, please go watch it; I suspect we will not see a better goal in the tournament.

I guarantee you that every fan of a club soccer team around the world has, at some point during this World Cup, gone to Rodriguez's Wikipedia page to find out where he plays (Monaco, in the French league) and how old he is (just 22). They will have been disappointed to learn that Monaco paid 45 million Euros for him last season, in the top 20 highest transfer fees in history, making him too expensive for all but a handful of teams. But they will remember his name - if for no other reason, than to pronounce it correctly in the future.

Netherlands 2, Mexico 1: Giovani dos Santos scored an excellent goal, and it looked like Mexico might hold on - until a late Wesley Sneijder rocket tied the game, and an Arjen Robben dive in stoppage time fooled the referee into awarding the Dutch the game-deciding penalty. If this serves only to remind the world that Arjen Robben is absolutely the worst, then perhaps it's still worth it. To sum up: Arjen Robben is the worst.

Let's also spare a thought for Mexico, which - almost incredibly - lost in the first knockout round for the sixth consecutive World Cup. It's like our neighbors to the south are doomed to forever be the 13th best team in world soccer: sure to qualify, good enough to progress, never good enough to go any farther.

Mexico has now been in the World Cup 15 times. They have made it to the knockout stage eight times. And in all that time, they have won ONE knockout-round game. By the time they get a chance to go for another, it'll be 32 years since that win, at home against Bulgaria in 1986. Yikes.

Costa Rica 1, Greece 1 (Costa Rica win 5-3 on penalties): Costa Rica are the tournament's happy underdog story, and we're just so pleased to see it keep running for a few more days. Bryan Ruiz scored in the 52nd minute for Los Ticos, who then had Oscar Duarte sent off 14 minutes later. But the Costa Ricans exhaustedly withstood the Greece attack for an hour longer, even after Sokratis Papastathopoulos tied the game in stoppage time in regulation, and then somehow had the energy to score all five penalties to advance. Striker Joel Campbell in particular looked like he could barely walk up to take his penalty, but he scored.

Costa Rica's reward is a quarterfinal against the Netherlands on Saturday, which is a poor reward. Still, during the game, the announcers told the story of the 1990 World Cup, the only other time Costa Rica made it through to the knockout round. Though they lost in the first game, upon their return to Costa Rica, they were given a heroes' welcome; people came out of their houses and held up mirrors, as the team's plane circled the country, and the players could see the reflection of a thousand points of light from all across the nation.

I don't know what awaits the team upon their return to Costa Rica this year. The modern equivalent would probably be laser pointers, but that seems unsafe.

Frequent contributor Jon Marthaler has written about virtually every sport in the Twin Cities, and fills in on Saturdays for the RandBall blog on StarTribune.com. He'll cover the professional soccer scene in the Twin Cities from the National Sports Center. Follow @jmarthaler on Twitter. Email Jon to talk about soccer.

Promotion and relegation is a popular concept in soccer - but doesn't exist in American soccer. Before pro/rel comes to MLS, though, perhaps the American sport that's most like European soccer could use a dose.